Glove making method and glove



Aug. 30, 1955 E. w. GOODMAN GLOVE MAKING METHOD AND GLOVE Filed March 8. 1954 FIG.

2 Sheets-Sheet l INVEN TOR. EARL W. GOODMAN ATTORNEYS Aug. 30, 1955 E. w. GOODMAN 2,716,241

GLOVE MAKING METHOD AND GLOVE Filed March 8, 1954 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTOR. EA RL n. GOODMAN @cQQ A TTOR/VEYS United States Patent C GLOVE MAKING METHOD AND GLGVE Earl W. Goodman, Willard, Ohio, assignor to The Pioneer Rubber Company, Willard, Ohio, a corporation of Ohio Application March 8, 1954, Serial No. 414,587 4 Claims. (Cl. 2169) This invention relates to a glove making method, and especially to a simplified, improved method of making right and left hand gloves from an ambidextrous glove shell, and to the glove so produced.

Most gloves as made today, and especially work gloves, are made by cutting a glove pattern from a fabric, placing the glove components together with the wrong side of the fabric facing outwardly, and the glove components are then sewed together to make a glove shell. The next step in making a glove comprises turning the glove shell right side out and pulling the shell over a heated form which serves to iron the glove shell and give the fabric forming the glove shell a smooth shape. Some gloves may be complete at such stage, but to make coated gloves, the ironed glove shell then is taken from the ironing form and thereafter pulled onto another form on which the glove shell remains while the glove is dipped in a suitable coating composition, such as a plastisol, or a rubber latex dispersion, next the glove and glove form are placed in a drying chamber to set, dry, fuse and/or vulcanize the coating material present on the glove after which the then finished form.

In at least nearly all gloves as commercially made heretofore, insofar as I am aware, the various glove patterns glove is stripped from the glove have been relatively complicated and it has been a tedious,

relatively slow operation to sew the components of the glove shell together. Additionally, due to such relatively complex shapes or patterns of the glove shell components, the glove shell when sewn together is of quite a wrinkled, or deformed shape, which deformity is retained by the glove shell even when turned right side out. Furthermore, the glove shell for a right hand glove has been entirely different, or opposite to a glove shell for a left hand glove and this additionally complicates the cutting of glove shells and the forming of gloves therefrom.

The general object of the present invention is to provide an improved glove making method for the type of coated gloves referred to, which method is characterized by the simplicity of design of the glove shell components, and by the making of a pair of right and left hand gloves from a pair of ambidextrous glove shells.

A further object of the invention is to make either a ight or a left hand glove from pairs of identical easily cut and sewed glove shell forming pieces of a slightly elastic knitted fabric.

Another object of the invention is to eliminate the glove shell ironing operation as required in previous glove making methods.

Another object of the invention is to provide a pair of right and left hand gloves which have appreciably increased freedom in the thumb portion of the glove than in prior types of gloves and which thumb portion does not bind the wearers hand.

Another object of the invention is to place an ambidextrous glove shell upon a right or left hand glove form, tension a portion of the glove shell by such mounting operation, coating the glove shell while under tension with 2 a liquid coating material, setting the liquid coating material as a solid to retain the glove shell in its then formed shape to provide right and left hand gloves from an ambidextrous glove shell.

Further objects of the invention are to provide gloves which are of inexpensive manufacture and which have the seams therein positioned away from the Wearing surface of the glove, to provide gloves that have neat, attractive fingers thereon which are round in cross section, to provide gloves that are easy to pull on and take off by the wearer, to provide a novel type of glove construction which is applicable for use with any desired type of a wrist finish on the glove, and to provide gloves which are free from chafing action on a wearers hands because the seams of the gloves are at the sides of the fingers and wearers hands.

The foregoing and other objects and advantages of the invention will be made more apparent as the specification proceeds.

For a better understanding of the principles of the present invention, reference should be made to the drawings which illustrate one currently preferred embodiment of the method of the invention, and wherein:

Fig. l is a plan of an inside-out glove shell as initially made in accordance with the invention;

Fig. 2 is an enlarged cross section taken on line 2-2 of Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is an elevation of the glove shell of Fig. 1 when turned right side out;

Fig. 4 is a back elevation of the glove shell of Fig. 3 when positioned on a glove form and after having them dipped into a suitable liquid coating material;

Fig. 5 is a side elevation of the glove shell and form of Fig. 4; and

Figs. 6 and 7 are front elevations of left and right hand gloves formed from similar glove shells, as shown in Fig. 3.

When referring to the accompanying drawings and the following specification, corresponding numerals are used in both the drawings and specification to refer to corresponding parts to facilitate comparison between the specification and the drawings.

The present invention in general relates to a glove making method comprising the steps of making a pair of identical glove shell blanks from a knitted material, superimposing a pair of such identical glove blanks with the wrong sides of the material on the outer surface, sewing the blanks together around the periphery of the blanks to make an ambidextrous glove shell, turning the ambidextrous glove shell inside out, shaping the ambidextrous glove shell to one hand form and tensioning portions of the glove shell by such shaping action, covering the surface of the shell with a liquid coating material that penetrates partially into the glove shell fabric, and setting or fusing the coating material to retain the tensioned and shaped glove shell in a right or a left glove shape.

Attention now is directed to the details of the structure shown in the accompanying drawings, and a glove is shown and is indicated as a whole in Fig. 5 by the numeral 1. This glove 1 is made from a pair of identical glove blanks comprising a front blank 2 and a back blank 21:, as shown in Fig. l with each glove blank including a plurality of fingers 3 and a thumb 4. These glove blanks 2 and 2a each comprise a piece of knitted or other slightly elastic fabric cut to the outline of flat hand shape. As indicated hereinafter, it is important that the glove blanks 2 and 2a be made from knitted or elastic fabric, and the inner surface of such fabric usually is provided with a softened, fuzzy or flanneled surface, while the outer surface of the fabric is of normal knitted finish.

The front and back glove blanks 2 and 2a are next placed in superimposed relation to each other with the inner surfaces of the glove blanks on the outer surface of the assembled pair of glove blanks and with the thumbs and fingers being in register. The pair of glove blanks 2 and 2a are suitably sewed together and a sewn seam 5 is-made extending completely around the periphery of the glove blanks, which seam 5 usually is used for securing any desired type of a wristlet, such as a wristlet 6 of knitted construction to the remainder of the glove shell forming materials. Fig. 2 indicates how the glove blanks 2 and 2a are in superimposed relation and how the seam 5 extends around the periphery of all exposed edge portions of such glove blanks. The glove blanks when sewed together provide a glove shell indicated by the numeral 7, which glove shell is of ambidextrous shape as it can be used to make either a right hand or a left hand glove,'as desired. The glove shell 7 next is turned right side out to the shape indicated in Fig. 3. Such glove shell has all of its seams in the finger and palm portions thereof at lateral portions of the glove shell and, because of the shape of the glove blanks 2 and 2a, the glove shell is of generally smooth overall contour even though it has not beensubject to any ironing or other shaping or forming operation. It should also be noted that the operation of sewing the'seam 5 is a relatively simple, rapidly performed operation due to the uncomplicated shape of the glove blanks 2 and 2a and the fiat positioning thereof for the sewing operation.

As an important feature of the present invention, the ambidextrous glove shell 7 is now placed upon either a right or a left hand form, tioned on a left hand glove form or mold 8 in Fig. 4. The form 8 is made of such size'and shape with relation to the size of the shell 7 that the fingers 3 and thumb 4 of the shell 7 are radially stretched, which action smooths all portions of the glove shell 7 and prepares it for a coating operation. Additionally, the thumb 4 of the shell 7 is moved or pulled out of the flat plane occupied by the glove shell 7 initially so that the glove shell now is in a partially cupped left hand shape and the thumb 4 has been pulled or bent inwardly toward the palm portion of the glove shell. Thus a transversely directed portion 9 in the back of the thumb and glove is tensioned, or stretched by the positioning of the glove on the form 8. Likewise, the back or outer portions of the fingers 3 are tensioned slightly as such fingers are curved slightly inwardly by the form 8 so that such end portions of the'fingers likewise lie out of the original flat plane defined by the shell 7.

Next the glove form 8 with the shell 7 thereon is dipped for a conventional length of time in a suitable coating e material 10. .This liquid coating material may comprise a solution or dispersion of rubber or rubber-like materials, while it also may be a dispersion or solution of any plastic material for example, the plastic material used could be a plastisol made from copolymers of polyvinyl chloride and polyvinyl acetate dispersed in suitable plasticizers. This plastisol used may be 'a non-drying liquid. In all events, after the mold or form 8 has been permitted to'remain in a bath of the coating material, or has been otherwise'covered with a uniform layer of the liquid coating material, the form 8 with the glove shell 7 thereon is moved into a suitable drying, fusing, setting, and/or vul-- canizing chamber or is otherwise subjected to such action. In such chamber or otherwise, the coating material is heated so that a fusing action of the plastisol occurs to changeit to a solid, non-tacky material. If a vulcanizable material is used in the coating, then this drying operation is performed under such conditions as to effect a vulcanization of the coating material to produce a permanent, solid coating from the liquid coating material.

As a feature of the invention, this coating material 10 partially impregnates the original knitted material making the glove shell 7 and remains firmly bonded thereto when fused or set. The coating material functions to retain the tensioned portions of the glove shell 7 in their and the shell 7 is shown posi- 4 given shape even after the finished glove 1 is stripped from the mold or form 8. The coating material 10 deposited upon the glove shell 7 usually extends completely over the surfaces of the shell 7 up and partially covering the wristlet 6 provided for the gove.

Fig. 5 of the drawings best shows a seam 11 of the thumb portion 4 of the glove so that it will be seen that the seam 11 extends forwardly around the glove from the wristlet 6 up along the then forwardly facing portion of the thumb. Initially, of course, such seam 11 was positioned directly laterally of the glove shell 7 and not visible from either face thereof. Likewise, a base portion of a seam indicated at 12 for the forefinger of the glove 1 likewise has been displaced slightly forwardly from its initial position at a lateral margin of the glove shell 7. The remaining portions of the original seam 5 still are positioned at the lateral portions of the fingers of the glove 1 except that part of the seam 5a extendingfrom the little finger to the wristlet 6 has been pulled slightly up into the back of the glove, so that none of such seams on the fingers of the glove are exposed for wearing action. Of course, there is no seam present on the palm portion of the glove, nor does the thumb seam 11 normally contact the wearing surface of the thumb when the glove is used for ordinary work purposes. It will be noted that there is no seam along the inner surface of the thumb portion 5 of the glove and this gives a maximum freedom to the hand and thumb of a person wearing the glove of the invention.

The seam 5 is said to extend around the periphery of the glove 1 but such seam might extend around the margins of the glove blanks 2 and 21 but not across the base thereof, dependent upon the shape of the glove blanks and whether or not a wristlet is required to complete the glove.

It appears as if the glove shell 7 when pulled onto the form 8 has a slight twisting of the glove shell adjacent the wristlet 6, as well as a tensioning of the portion 9 of the shell and the fingers 3 and thumb 4. The glove 1 is made from simple shaped glove blanks 2 and 2a that can be rapidly and neatly sewed together. ,The ambidextrous glove shell 7 is specially tensioned and shaped to glove form by the method of the invention and the coating material 10 retains the glove shell in desired right or left glove form. Hence it is thought that the objects of the invention have been achieved.

While one complete embodiment of the invention has been disclosed herein, it will be appreciated that modification of this particular embodiment of the invention may be resorted to without departing from the scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims.

I claim:

1. A glove making method comprising making a pair of identical glove shell blanks with the wrong sides of the material on the outer surface and sewing the blanks together around the periphery of the blanks to make an ambidextrous glove shell, turning the glove shell inside out to have the right side of the material on the outside, tensioning portions of the glove shell by shaping it to one hand shape on a form, covering the shaped glove shell with a liquid coating material that penetrates into the glove shell fabric while the shell is on a form, and setting the coating to make a glove shaped to one hand shape from the ambidextrous glove shell while still on the form.

2. A glove making methodcomprising making a pair of identical glove shell blanks from a fabric material,

superimposing the pair of identical glove blanks, sewing,

the blanks together around the periphery of the blanks to make an ambidextrous glove shell, tensioning portions of' coated glove shaped to one hand form from the dextrous glove shell.

3. A glove making method comprising the steps of preparing an ambidextrous glove shell from a pair of identical knitted glove blanks having a seam extending around the periphery of the glove shell, shaping the glove shell to a partly cupped hand form and twisting base and thumb portions of the glove shell by such shaping, covering the shaped glove shell with a liquid coating material that penetrates into the glove shell fabric, and setting the coating while the shell is retained in the desired hand shape to make a glove shaped to one hand form from the ambidextrous glove shell.

4. A glove making method comprising the steps of preparing an ambitextrous glove shell from a pair of identiambical glove blanks, shaping the glove shell to a partly cupped hand form and tensioning portions of the glove shell by such shaping action, covering the shaped glove shell with a liquid coating material that penetrates into the glove shell fabric, and setting the coating while the glove shell is retained in the shaped form to make a glove shaped to one hand form from the originally ambidextrous glove shell.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,083,684 Burke June 15, 1937 FOREIGN PATENTS 2,073 Great Britain Feb. 2, 1905 

